Can I Make Best Buy Honor Their Advertised Sale Price?

Reader Sean tried to order a TV that was on sale at Best Buy, but for some reason his order didn’t go through. Now the TV isn’t on sale anymore and Best Buy is claiming to have no record of the transaction.

Sean says:

On Monday the 26th I finally found the TV of my dreams. I have been looking for a new TV ever since I found a new apartment and the apartment is too small for my old 65″ Mitsubishi TV. I found a new DLP model for $999 on best buys website on the 26 during a two day online only sale. Well I promptly put it into the cart and submitted my order.

Well after I put in my CC info and signed on as a guest and submitted the order, the site pushed me back onto the main page and I thought the order had been placed. Now I own a web design company and I know how the order processing usually takes place. I should have received some kind of order confirmation but didn’t. So I emailed Best Buy and let them know that I had placed my order but didn’t get a confirmation. Now the sale ended that night and they emailed me the next day telling me that I need a order ID or confirmation number. I didn’t have either due to not getting any emails from them and the site botting me to the main page after the order supposedly went through.

Well after being in touch with Best Buy through email and 3 different customer care reps I finally decided to call after they told me they could find my email on profile. So I called today and spent 50 mins of the phone explaining my problem to a very nice women.

She told me that because they have no record of the transaction that they would not honor that price. Even though I have the history saved in my web browser. Without any ID number, which they should have given me, I was screwed.

So now the price is $1,279.99 instead of $999 and I don’t have that kind of money right now and they refuse to honor that price for me. Its not like I am trying to scam them, I just wanted my TV at the advertised price which I thought I had ordered with no problems in the first place. Is there anything I can do or am I really this screwed?

Well, since neither of you have any record of the transaction and the sale is over, there’s nothing you can force them to do — but that doesn’t mean you should give up. A low-level customer service person probably doesn’t have the authority to discount an item by that much, so you probably want to escalate your complaint.

You can do that by launching an EECB, here’s some contact information. Make your case and be ready to negotiate.